Introductions First

Hey there, and welcome to Thoughts From Eorzea, my FFXIV blog. Before I get going I thought I might as well introduce myself first.

I've been an avid MMORPG player for quite a while now, since 2000 at least. Some of the bigger games I have played include EVE Online, World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, and Guild Wars. I could never get too into those games, seeing as how I already was quite taken with the first large scale MMORPG I played. Final Fantasy XI.

To be honest, my journey through FFXI has been a long one, even though I only got into it when it came out for the Xbox 360. The first time I played it was right after the North American release on the Playstation 2. At the time, all the controls simply made no sense to me, and I think I played a total of 2 days. I gave it to a friend, and almost completely forgot about it. A couple years later, I was playing on my Xbox 360 when one of my friends asks me if I heard about the MMORPG that just came out for the 360. He told me about it, and I couldn't help but think it sounded very familiar, so I decided to go out and buy it. The person in the video game store who I bought it from was telling me all about how much he loved it. He kept on talking about his Lv. 75 Monk, and using a whole bunch of lingo I didn't understand.

The first time I fired up FFXI, I was really unsure on what to do. It probably took me a good two hours to make my Content ID. Once I had that done though, I carried on to make my first character. It took me a while to decide on what to make my character look like, but I eventually settled on a light haired Elvaan male. Once I had that done, I made my customary visit to name website to find a good name. I decided on a Welsh name, and began my adventure in Titan's Bastok.

Well, I got hooked within the first hour of playing the game. Today, I still don't have any Lv. 75s. The closest I've gotten is a Lv. 60 NIN. It's something that my friends have ordained Job ADD. I can never decide which job I like the best so I've leveled almost every other job at least to 50. I would definitely say that I've taken my time in this game, enjoying every second of it, and I'm sure that's the way I'll play in FFXIV too.

Well, that's me and my FFXI experience in a nutshell. Now I invite you to join me as I begin another adventure in the months leading up to FFXIV's release, hopefully it's Beta, and as I step into the full game for the first time. See you there!

-Lieven